EPT Barcelona Day 1a Recap!

Praise the Euro-donks! The PokerStars European Poker Tour is back for its fifth season and as of Wednesday it's on, with the Barcelona Open kicking off proceedings from the city's Gran Casino on the Mediterranean shore.

This beautiful Catalan locale has been a fixture on the EPT's schedule since Season 1, when John Duthie and Co. kicked off the first iteration of what would soon become a continent-wide (and, with the inclusion of the PokerStars Caribbean Adventure for Season 4, a transatlantic) poker phenomenon.

That first tournament saw 229 runners pay the €1,000 entry fee, with Alexander Stevic taking down top spot and an €80,000 first prize. Over the next four years both the field size and the buy-in grew substantially, with Season 4's tournament attracting 543 runners all willing to pay €8,000 for a shot at that tasteful novelty-check-and-oversized-vase combo. Sander Lylloff took it down, defeating Mark Teltscher in heads-up play to claim a first prize worth a remarkable €1,170,000.

Gonna need a bigger bank.

This year the buy-in remains the same but organizers have forecast an even larger turnout, capping the field at 600 entrants. With 292 entrants on Wednesday's Day 1a, we're almost certain to reach that number on Thursday when registration concludes two levels into Day 1b.

Before the pokering began, however, the good people at PokerStars threw another of their infamous welcome parties, this one at the seaside Opium del Mar on the Barceloneta just outside the casino. There were no dragons to be chased, but there was an open bar, free champagne and some tasty little flatbread pizzas for all involved.

Gotta love the Steps.

The Welcome party doubled as the first annual EPT awards, an occasion that seemed to only partially distract the revelers (in Duthie's words, "I hope you can hear me over the noise you're all making.").

While the party raged on, MCs Daniel Negreanu and Gloria Balding presented a succession of awards to the heroes of Season 4, including Luca Pagano (Player of the Year), Trond Eidsvig (Best Newcomer), Julian Thew (Performance of the Year), Danny Ryan (PokerStars Qualifier of the Year) and Mike McDonald (Overseas Player of the Year and the People's Choice Awards).

Our totally impartial pick for Man of the Year.

Thew would also take home the Poker Writer's Award, an award the gregarious Englishman well deserves, although at least one PokerListings staffer was said to have voted for EPT Copenhagen champ/shoe-wielding maniac Tim Vance, perhaps out of fear that he might be next to feel the middle-American's wrath.

With the awards out of the way and the hangovers pretty well a given, it was time to commence the pokering. Day 1a began early on Wednesday afternoon (3 p.m., to be exact) and featured eight levels of excitement before the closing bell tolled at roughly 1:30 Thursday morning.

Word to Vicky Coren!

Among those who partook in the first of two first days of play in Barcelona were Team PokerStars pros Andre Akkari, Greg Raymer, Alexandre Gomes, Vicky Coren, Alex Kravchenko, Vanessa Rousso, Chad Brown and Noah Boeken, as well as former EPT champs Mark Teltscher, Glen Chorny, Jason Mercier and the aforementioned McDonald, plus a vast assortment of pros online and live, American and European.

It was a gong show, folks, and the action started early, with 20 players eliminated in the first two hours of action. Most of them were donkeys, but in the third level the pros started to feel the pinch as well, with a short-stacked David Ulliott among the first to go.

She's just getting started.

Following the Devilfish to the rail was 2007 WSOPE Main Event champ Annette Obrestad, who fell after calling off her stack with a gut-shot straight flush draw against a big-stacked opponent with only top pair. The Norwegian failed to hit on turn or river and was thus eliminated, consigned to the beach or the first flight to London, where she'll aim to defend her championship later this month.

Level 6 would mean the end for a trifecta of Team PokerStars pros, as Greg Raymer, Vicky Coren and Vanessa Rousso would all head for the exits as the evening wore into night. Raymer and Coren both lost races while short-stacked, but Rousso's demise would come after the Lady Maverick slow-played big slick/top pair, top kicker in a rather curious fashion, limp-calling from under the gun and ultimately falling to Doug "wcgrider" Polk's top two pair.

Dude obv. should have folded his big blind.

Slow play would also claim Full Tilt Poker's Erica Schoenberg, much to the collective dismay of the PokerListings news team. E-Scho bought it after limping with aces from early position and letting her opponent in the big blind flop two pair with Q-4 offsuit. Schoenberg would take it to the river but was dead in the water and bounced late on Day 1a.

Meanwhile, 2008 WSOP Main Event finalist David "Chino" Rheem and 2007 WSOP bracelet winner Michael Keiner were both rolling deep at the top of the chip leaderboard as the day progressed. Rheem, however, would watch his substantial stack disintegrate with a busted set of sevens forming the apex of his efforts. He'd go broke midway through the day's final level after running A-Q into pocket aces on a queen-high flop.

Gone till November (or the WSOPE).

Keiner - who amassed most of his chips in an insane hand that saw three players (pocket kings, jacks and fives) shove in front of him while he held pocket aces (miraculously, they held) - would survive Day 1a. But he would lose ground from the nearly $70,000 he held at his personal high-water mark.

Keiner would be supplanted on top of the chip leaderboard by Michael Murra and Nichlas Mattsson, with Chad Brown, Ramzi Jelassi and Jason Mercier also in the running for the top dog position. (Full chip counts will be released before play begins tomorrow.)

Day 1b will commence at 3 p.m. local time (9 a.m. EDT/6 a.m. PDT) and continue over another eight levels of fun. Expected to take part in the proceedings are Daniel Negreanu, Gavin Griffin, the bizarre conglomerate that is Isabario Mercinieri and Scotty Nguyen.

Tune in to PokerListings.com for all of the day's action in words, photographs, and exclusive interpretive dance. You won't regret it, although we might.